N. Korea puts pressure on U.S. ahead of Pompeo visit

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — Ramping up pressure on the United States, North Korea on Tuesday accused the Trump administration of demanding too much but offering too few concessions in its negotiations over the terms of denuclearizing the North.

Up to now, North Korea has demanded almost daily that the U.S. join North and South Korea in declaring an end to the Korean War as an initial confidence-building concession from Washington before taking steps to denuclearize. The war was halted with a truce in 1953 but a peace treaty was never signed.

The U.S. insists that before it grants any concessions to North Korea, the North must do more to keep its end of the deal Kim Jong Un reached in his talks with President Donald Trump in Singapore in June — when the North Korean leader promised to “work toward the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”

U.S. officials and analysts have called on the North to submit a full inventory of its nuclear program for verification and to start dismantling its nuclear and missile facilities.

But on Tuesday, North Korea called such demands “rubbish.”

The end-of-war declaration “can never be a bargaining chip for getting the DPRK denuclearized,” the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency said, using the acronym for the country’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. “If the U.S. doesn’t want the end of war, the DPRK will also not particularly hope for it.”

The commentary indicates the North will drive a hard bargain when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo makes his fourth visit to Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, this month. Pompeo has accepted an invitation to visit the North to narrow differences over the terms of denuclearizing and arrange a new summit meeting between Kim and Trump.